This is what orthedoxy said in the thread of Aremenian Orthodox.orthedoxy said:The Armenian Church along with the Syrian, Ethiopian, Coptic and the Indian-Malabar Church or Church of the Apostle St. Thomas, comprise the 5 churches that rejected not only Eutyches, but also the definitions and acts of Chalcedon due primarily to the Tome of Leo, which "separated' the pactivities of Christ according to human or divine, thus tending strongly toward the dangers and errors of Nestorius.
Errors and Objections
To the ear of the Orthodox, Christ is now divided by saying that the Word does one thing, while the flesh does another. Furthermore, Leo writes "the activity of each form" and then goes on to say how they do different things. The Logos - anathema to anyone who professes this - is divided in our understanding of what Leo has said. If Leo had said that the Word does miracles according to His Divinity and hungered according to His humanity, we would not have an issue.
To us, it is already defined by Saint Cyril:
Considering, therefore, as I said, the manner of His incarnation we see that His two natures came together with each other in an indissoluble union, without blending and without change, for His flesh is flesh and not divinity, even though his flesh became the flesh of God, and likewise the Word also is God and not flesh, even though He made the flesh His own according to the dispensation. Therefore, whenever we have these thoughts in no way do we harm the joining into a unity by saying that he was of two natures, but after the union we do not separate the natures from one another, nor do we cut the one and indivisible Son into two sons but we say that there is one Son, and as the holy Fathers have said, there is one nature of the Word (of God) made flesh (Saint Cyril the Great, the Pillar of the Faith, Letter to Bishop Succensus).
Egyptians do not forget what their ancestors did. So, the Tome does not look very promising to us, nor even provide any sort of positive basis for discussions on unity. Should our church unite with the Diophysites, I would not be able to proclaim that I accept Leo's Tome.
It seems that the Diophysites ignore the greater issue that Saint Dioscorus saw: Leo's Christ "in" two natures leaves room for debate on His Unity, while Saint Dioscorus' "OF two natures" is in itself a unity. I cannot help but question the Orthodoxy of the Chalcedonians at that point in time, or at least consider that they themselves were not clear in their understanding of their own Christology at that time. I would argue further that it was for that reason they needed their Constantinopole II to clarify their own Christology.
What Leo might have been trying to say is possibly Orthodox, but we do not see room for it in his Tome for all these reasons.
The best analogy is that of St. Cyril. He describes a burning hot iron that you use to shape. The iron is so hot that it is literally on fire. Hammering the iron bends the whole thing, you can't say that the fire separated itself from the burning iron. To turn this into an on-and-off switch as Leo implies, is Nestorianism. That is why St. Dioscorus absolutely refused to subscribe to the Tome, and why, personally, if our churches do unite, I would not be able to look to the Tome as any sort of official document.
I don't mean to sound impolite, but what does your response above have to do with SuperMickey's last post?jeffthefinn said:I agree with you Super Mickey, the split had far more to do with politics than it did dogma.
Jeff the Finn
This is taken from http://www.geocities.com/mfignatius/others/byzantine02.htmlI am not saying this to be offensive, though we must all put up with what might seem to be offense if we are to press through to unity. But this was the context in which the OO rejected Chalcedon.
1. The Tome of Leo was obviously weak on the unity of Christ.
2. Nestorius and Theodoret considered it to describe their own Nestorian christology.
3. Some of those who accepted Chalcedon were supporters of Nestorius and Theodoret.
4. The bishops who stood up for the traditional Orthodox terminology were either deposed or threatened with deposition.
5. All of the traditional phrases used to defend against Nestorianism were excluded.
In the actual definitio of Chalcedon there were a number of points which made it appear as a Nestorian conspiracy. EO fail to explain these points and tend to merely say that criticism of the council is itself a sign of heresy.
1. The phrase mia-physis or mia-hypostasis of the Incarnate Word is excluded from the definitio.
2. From two natures or hypostases was in the first draft of the definitio but was removed and in two natures was put in its place. At this time physis was synonomous with hypostasis and in two natures was used by the Nestorians, such as Theodoret who with great reluctance anathematised Nestorius while the acts of the council show that the other bishops jeered him because they knew he was anathematising him only to save himself. Theodoret was a member of the council and this must have been a real offense to the OO who believed that this was yet another sign of Nestoranising.
3. In two natures was used by the Nestorians to show that Christ was two beings not one, two realities, united only in the external aspect of person or appearance. From two natures - St Cyrils terminology - meant that out of humanity and Divinity a union had preserved one being or reality that was both human and Divine. It did not mean that the humanity had any pre-existence but that the union was from these two and perfected in one reality, or being or hypostasis. The Chalcedonian phrase had Nestorian written all over it as far as the opponents of the council were concerned.